Mayor not playing favorites on competing Las Vegas arena projects

By Dave Toplikar

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011 | 1:06 p.m.

For the last several years, Mayor Oscar Goodman has made it well known he would love to see a new sports arena built in downtown Las Vegas.

And one might expect him to be extolling the virtues of the latest proposal that became public this week to build a three-stadium downtown sports complex in Symphony Park

But Goodman is not carrying any hearts and flowers for the $1.57 billion Las Vegas National Sports Center over any of the others on the table. At least not publicly.

"I'm rooting that somebody's going to be able to build an arena," the mayor said at his weekly news conference. "... Once that shovel turns, you know they're going to have the financing in place and that's the beginning of something great for Las Vegas."

The latest proposal includes a 17,500-seat arena for basketball and hockey, a 9,000-seat partially enclosed baseball stadium and a 50,000-seat partially enclosed football stadium in Symphony Park. Symphony Park is the former Union Pacific rail yard that now includes the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Institute for Brain Health and the Smith Center for Performing Arts.

That three-stadium project is in competition with the "UNLV Now" proposal by developer Ed Roski to build a new domed football-basketball arena project near the existing Thomas & Mack Center on UNLV's campus.

Goodman said the city's developer, the Cordish Company, has been talking to International Development Management about the three-stadium complex for about a month.

"Betsy Fretwell, our city manager, is almost in daily contact with them," Goodman said. However, it is business, and nobody wants to show their hand, he said.

Goodman said while he's made no secret about wanting an arena downtown, it wouldn't be fair for him to play favorites.

"I really want to have an arena complex in this community because I think it will galvanize the people," he said. "I think we'll be able to identify with the teams that are there. It will give us a sense of being something better than we are today. I'm going to encourage all of the parties to just push as hard as they can."

The mayor, who is finishing his third four-year term, is also wanting to go out of office on a high note following this spring's city elections.

"I'd love to have something on the dotted line before I leave this position so I could feel I at least had some small part in bringing the NBA here, with my dealings with David Stern, the commissioner," Goodman said.

Asked why he thought the proposals have become more elaborate over the years, Goodman said it was "because the light bulb went on."

When Las Vegas hosted the 2007 NBA All Star game, Stern at that time said he wouldn't stand in the way if the NBA franchise owners wanted to bring a team here, Goodman said.

"I met with the owners and I believe that we will have an NBA franchise as soon as we have an arena," Goodman said. "I think they take the position that whoever is going to build it first is going to be the winner."

Goodman said the main difference between past proposals and the the ones now on the table is that the latest ones "have money behind them."

For example, Silverton Casino Lodge owner Ed Roski, who has proposed a 40,000-seat arena complex for UNLV at Tropicana Avenue and Paradise Road, has a track record of successful sports ventures in other places, Goodman said. The Cordish Company also has built several arena projects around the country, he said..

"I think we have players who aren't just talking," Goodman said. "I think they realize that something's going to happen, that the Legislature is going to be looking at funding concepts and they want to be first in line."